German-born artist and activist Gustav Metzger, best known as the father of the Auto-Destructive art movement, died at the age of 90 on March 1st. Metzger’s art was often politically motivated, and the Auto-Destructive movement notable called upon artists to destroy works of art as an act of protest. Some of the artist’s personal works also involved the destruction of…

The first ever Desert X (Desert Exhibition of Art) is set to open this weekend in California’s Coachella Valley, a location currently famous for the eponymous music festival that occurs every April. The exhibition will see numerous artists creating both indoor and outdoor works that respond to various aspects, physical and experiential, of the desert location. One work previewed in the linked article…

The Center for Visual Art at the Metropolitan State University of Denver is currently hosting an exhibition of art by artists from the Middle East, including a number who now reside in the U.S. and Canada. Though the show had been planned well before the U.S. presidential election, current events have made it quite timely, as noted by curator Cecily Cullen. While discussions of…

This March 11th, MoMA will once again be hosting its annual Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon, an event which will feature panels and discussions about online information and accurate research. The goal of the event, which is being put on the for the fourth consecutive year, is to create more Wikipedia pages for women artists. Edit-a-Thons are also being held in March at various other…

The Uffizi Galleries, located in Florence, Italy, have vowed to start showing more female artists. The decision was reached, in part, after the museum’s director spoke to the Guerilla Girls in 2015. Coinciding with International Women’s Day on March 8th, the museum will put on a retrospective exhibition of works by Suor Plautilla Nelli, a 16th-century nun who became known as…

Two White House petitions urging Trump to preserve the NEA and federal arts funding are reportedly not registering new signatures. Both the petitions, currently “available” on the White House website, launched January 21st, the day after the inauguration, a few days after the new president announced his budget plan that would not include funding for the NEA or the…

A recent report indicates that Donald Trump intends to completely defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as part of budget cuts outlined in his presidential platform. Under the Obama administration the NEA’s annual budget was roughly $146 million, less than 0.3 percent of the U.S. government’s total budget. Trump’s administration reportedly intends to reduce federal…

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s plans to celebrate its 150th anniversary with a new wing have been delayed due to financial issues. While the hope was to have the $600 million new wing open in 2020, officials announced on Wednesday that the Met must instead devote the necessary time and money to repairing the skylights and roof above the rooms housing European paintings.…

This week marks the launch of Art in Ad Places, a year-long campaign by a number of artists to put artwork in spaces normally reserved for advertising. The campaign will see art installed in bus shelters and payphone booths throughout New York City. Though the works are not all explicitly anti-advertisement, the organizers of the campaign see the artworks as a way of questioning and protesting…

1) Owner of Destroyed Zoffany Painting may be Fully Remibursed by National Trust

The government of the U.K. is likely to pay a record-setting £4 million in insurance money to cover the value of a painting that was destroyed in a fire. The painting was Johann Zoffany’s “The Mathew Family at Felix Hall, Kelvedon, Essex.” Painted in the 1760’s, the work pictured a young George Mathew, the descendants of whom were its owners. It…

Nancy Weiner, a New York-based art dealer whose clients include Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses, has been charged with selling stolen and smuggled antiquities. According to the Manhattan District Attorney, Weiner may have been buying illegal artefacts and creating fake paperwork to cover up dubious provenance since 1999. Weiner’s process may have even…

A Hong Kong gallery is flipping the script as far as gallery design goes. Hong Kong’s recently-expanded Empty Gallery is a two-floor space with entirely black walls, floors, and even fixtures - the complete opposite of the pristine white cube that we’ve come to expect from gallery spaces. Founder Stephen Cheng believes that a pitch black space is the ideal conductor for art…

The Art Institute in Chicago is expanding its free admission program to include high-school aged teens. Currently, the Institute offers free admission to children up to 13 years of age. Thanks to a sizeable donation by Kansas-based philanthropists Glenn and Claire Swogger, teens aged 14 to 17 will also get into the museum for free, starting in the new year. The…

Art Basel Miami Beach is now underway, and here’s a look at some of the outdoor sculpture that’s being displayed as part of the fair. The full outdoor public art exhibition is titled “Ground Control,” and features separate works from 20 different participating artists. Though this Hyperallergic article notes that the equal gender representation of last year’s…

Technological advancements such as 3-D printing and digital scanning and rendering may be the next - less dangerous - step forward in the preservation and restoration of ancient or endangered artworks. This article in the New Yorker looks specifically at a few different ancient artworks including the wall paintings inside King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber, that have been…